Introduce Yourself

As a fascinated maker, already using a MakerBot 2X 3D printer, I just had to have a portable CNC machine and signed up within a few minutes of the Handibot Kickstarter offer opening. I have just received my Handibot (in the USA) and brought it home to England. I shall start to use it as soon as I get the necessary 220/110V transformer for the local mains voltage and find the online manual (anyone know where it is?) as I am a firm believer in RTFM* before turning something on.

I am a retired (but still lecturing, teaching and writing) electronic engineer specialising in analog ICs. I live beside the sea on the south coast of England with my musician/sculptor wife and two cats. My other interests include philosophy, travel, amateur radio (callsign G4CLF), scuba diving, cooking, hypnotism, book collecting (especially SF & fantasy) and our Aston Martin DB7.

I am not really big in supplying personal information to the internet. I will pass along a few basics.

I have never used a CNC machine, though I have thought about it a few times. I have a long history of making wood projects and buildings, though perhaps my accuracy is less than I would wish. I am getting ready to retire, and look forward to having the opportunity to make some skill improvements. I do not yet have my Handibot, supposed to arrive in September.

I drive a Tesla model S, so I am guilty of being an early adopter. I have been a programmer in the ancient past, Fortran, Basic. Doing programs for Process and automation control. No experience with current programming languages, though I would like to learn to write apps.

Located in Texas, near Dallas.

James, I have a tendency to turn it on and read the manual to figure out why it doesn't work like I thought I know it is not good policy, but that is how I am.

I can do most things, but sometimes have difficulty achieving the level of fit and finish that I wish. My stuff works, just may not look as nice as I wish.

I missed the earlybird round of machines on Kickstarter but am in the December traunch. Really looking forward to spending the cold, dark winter months (@ the NJ Shore) in the shop getting acquainted with the HandiBot.

As a hobbiest metal worker and all-around DIY woodworker, my interest is in making (mostly) small parts used in my other endeavours and prototyping new ideas. I have a small side-line endeavour selling add-on items for Festool tracks saws (www.ripdogs.com) and the HandiBot will allow me to expand this as well.

Richard I have a regular size (48x96) ShopBot but I end up doing a lot of minature stuff with it. I am a model maker. I do tons of stuff in plastic and you are going to just love it. The fun part is designing the jigs and after viewing your website you have all of those skills already!

We have a thing called the Garage there which is after hours side project stuff. I help run the Maker Garage chapter, a short video was posted recently about that.

In addition to that I also spend most Thursday nights down at Metrix for 3D Printer night. Through that I wound up in the early alpha build crew of the Kossel Pro. I've built two other printers, one is working very well. The other I happily disassembled for parts.

I'm into woodworking and intend to use this machine primarily for engraving/carving and cutting out accurate jig parts (zero clearance table saw throat inserts anyone?). This is my first subtractive CNC machine.

I've got a very long backlog of synthesizer projects. Oddly, I don't seem to have much time for that.

I am a hobby woodworker. I teach Physics and Math at a private technical college in the Twin Cities (Minnesota, USA).

I was going to buy the MakerBot Replicator™ 2X until I noticed the handibot on the Lumberjocks website. My goal has always been to teach students the math behind 3D anything. This is the first time in 40 + years of trying to get students interested in the math behind 3D that they are excited. We just had success in creating Lissajoux figures in MS Excel and then having the handibot CNC the results. Two of my students have been late to class until I introduced this tool!

I look forward to learning more about model making for my Architecture students. They already make Sketchup models and I would like to be able to have them cut the walls using the handibot. My land surveying students want to make models of terrain that they survey. It is very exciting.

I am dissappointed that PartWorks3D or some other true 3D program did not come with handibot. I am new to CNC and am excited to understand and learn about how these programs work, in particular how they determine toolpaths, if that is the correct terminology.

Hi. Just received HandiBot today. It is a marvel of simplicity. Really impressive.

The dewalt 611 appears to be a beast.

I need to find or make a coupling for the exhaust port before I start cutting.

Assuming that it does cut and the dust is vacuumed up, the HandiBot won't be very useful for me until I can index it over larger work pieces. I've imported a dxf of a small euro cab door. Not much to it--two cups for hinges and a cut-away handle opening. A first step. I am working out the details of a one-piece indexing template which uses a Festool rail guide on the x-axis. I am also hoping to be able to use the HandiBot on 2-by lumber using the same accessory. I plan to either share the design if it works or share the experience gained if it don't.

I'm a long-time hobbyist woodworker, one of Mike Dunbar's "Knights of Windsor" (#25 if I recall correctly), wood turner, and general shop geek. I retired a few years ago and spend lots of spare time at a nearby makerspace (TechShop and before that, Sawdust Shop). Through the makerspaces, I started learning about CNC and subtractive fun.

TechShop provides access to an Alpha, a Buddy, and a Desktop. Handibot is part of my shop and rounds out the list.

I upgraded my handibot during training at ShopBot last month so it can drive an indexing head (which I already had on hand). I'm looking forward to using that combination for learning about CNC lathe projects…

I recognize at least one name on earlier posts in this thread…met them during the training at ShopBot. Great group of people there (fellow supports as well as staff).

I mentor with a local high school's robotics team…helping them build their practice field elements, some booth/pit parts, and the occasional school project. Prior to early this year, we exclusively used their school's wood shop. This year, they were one of a handful of teams TechShop supported. That got them access to ShopBots and all sort of other goodies. Hoping to use that even more in their next season and eventually convince the school to add a handibot or Desktop to their woodshop.

Tim Flugum's success story above is the sort of thing they should be getting in on (they already have 3D CAD classes…but no equipment to make anything they've drawn).

I'm in my early 20s and I am a very energetic hard working young-man always looking to make a few bucks. I saw this handibot a few months back and have been checking up on updates on the webpage regularly waiting for it to be available to order. Some of you on here I have been reading about and it seems you have been able to order them already. I was just wondering if there is any other way of ordering them or getting in contact with the company besides the email contact option from the webpage.Thank You

Those of us that already have a handibot got it through their Kickstarter project last year. Hopefully, the production units will be available very soon but we'll have to hear from a ShopBot spokesperson for that...

Boris Smirnov - from NY, I am artist turned, designer, turned developer, turned... on the other hand I guess I always had passion for making... I have been lurking for a while and have been waiting for Handibot to be available for sale since I missed the Kickstarter campaign. Finally I ordered one and cannot wait to get it !.

As for me, I have formal training in Fine Arts and Design and have been in Web development for about 12 years moving from design to ui, to development and finally Drupal. In a past couple of years I have been getting into electrical engineering, woodworking and have been waiting for a tool that would allow me to some of my larger ideas into reality.

I betting on Handibot being a game changer and really excited about possibilities that it opens.

I have plenty to lean in the CNC sphere but I have been building my home workshop.

So nice to meet you all and looking forward to being part of this community !

I finally ordered my HandiBot(Developer Edition) today. I've been wanting a Shopbot Tool for a very long time but the cost of the larger machines were just too much and out of my reach.

I consider my self to be an all-around handyman but I have no CNC experience to go with those skills. I'm really looking forward to developing Apps for the HandiBot and to try these out on my projects.

I'm retired and have a lot of time on my hands and will be willing to test things out for anyone who needs help and to help me to learn to use my new toy.

I like to experiment and would also be eager to test out new software if the HandiBot folks need a tester.

I can't wait for the 3-4 weeks to pass until I get my HandiBot. Maybe I'll get an email soon with a link to my software so that I can start learning VCarve Pro and Pathworks 3D.

Okay, probably time for me to post here as I keep noticing that a lot of posts are stared by me.I work as an electronics tech. and have always tinkered, had been looking at 3D printers and cnc for several years but never had pulled the trigger.Falling asleep at the computer literally cost me $200 as the early birds went within minutes!I have played with it just enough to know that if I have to choose between this and a 3d printer the handibot wins hands down!I look forward to making a lot of cool stuff with it.

I am currently living in San Francisco - I've been involved in electronics and software since 1977 and I plan on retiring in a few years, and moving in a few months to my future retirement home in the Central Coast. I took seven courses at TechShop on CNC and welding, and got interested in Kickstarter too late to be an early adopter of Handibot.

I have quite a few projects in mind as I have to remodel significant portions of my new home - I worked in construction throughout my university years, and am comfortable with powertools

My first project is a location-specific horizontal sundial - notice how the days are longer in the Summer in Seattle compared to San Diego and shorter in comparison in Winter? Yeah, and timezone boundaries mean that if you are on the East side, the Sun sets earlier than if you are on the West side. About 150 years ago, each town had its own time. I have my own time.

This project takes a variety of mathematical formulae and magnetic declination to get positioning of the sundial accurately (most people will have compasses, not GPS). Going from an Excel Spreadsheet through some Shell Scripts to something for an AutoCAD, exporting hence to VCarve Pro and then on to ShopBot...let's say it was an adventure in syntax and programming automation: Math-to-CAD-to-CAM-to-Carve. Specifically, I am automating Excel, exporting/saving, then importing into Corel Draw, then into VCarve Pro, and then into a format for Handibot. I'm thinking of abstracting the whole thing into Ruby, Java, or Python and putting a web front-end to get inputs (maybe with address lookups). That could be a low volume hobby business...or not.

My biggest challenge was choosing materials, and I'm still not satisfied with where I am, but my first pass with Handibot seemed to show that I might be able to have a broader spectrum of materials than I originally thought.

as a structural engineer and wood scientiest with his specialisation in joinery techniques I am very interested in tools, which support designers to produce there designs. In my free time I develop new joints and test different material combinations for increased strength and new applications in construction.

In theory I know a lot about these tools, but like that poor cobbler who's kids go shoe-less, I don't get nearly enough time to use them. So I'm looking forward to getting much more into the experience of putting Handibots to use ... trying to make sense of what they're going to be good for, and what is beyond the limit.

I do, of course, have a lot of opportunity to putter around with the nature of the tool ... I'm hoping this will be increasingly be something that everyone will engage with.

Looking forward to reading about what everyone is up to ... and showing a bit of my stuff ...

I just ordered my Handibot yesterday and can't wait to get my hands on it. I am a service specialist for a international medical equipment company residing in Gainesville Florida. I have exactly no experience with a cnc machine, so please bear with my newbie questions while I am going through the learning curve.

I am glad to be part of this community and I will appreciate all information given to me to help me through my learning experience.

I received my Handibot as part of the original Kickstarter. I have not used it as much as I would like, but I expect that to change soon. I am moving into a new shop with a great deal more space which should given me the freedom to play around with it more. My background is in Aerospace Engineering and I am a skilled in design and CAD model creation. I look forward to learning more about the GCode side and converting CAD geometry into something that can be machined. My specific project interests for the Handibot are pretty broad. Everything from woodworking to machining plastics and eventually aluminum for mechanical design projects. I am also hoping to eventually integrate it with linear and rotary indexers to expand the functionality of the machine.

I am located southeast of the Seattle area in Maple Valley. I would be happy to collaborate with others in the area or even demo the machine for those nearby who are interested.

Me and a friend from hackerspace www.zeitsparwerk.org would like to build a handibot, using the available 3d-STEP data and BOM. Doing this, we want to contribute some additional drawing in metric units and provide possible ideas for further improving the open-source handibot.We can buy most of the parts in the internet or mill/laser cut them ourselfes.Anyway I need some of the special electronic parts, specific used in handibot ... and that why I registered in this forum, as a start.

I have been following the progress of the Handibot since it came out and am looking to pull the trigger soon. I already own a full size prsalpha so this would be something to tinker with and the portability also makes it attractive. Does anyone know if the new Handibots ship with the new controller card based on the new G2 platform. If not, is anyone currently beta testing? The other possibility is building their own based on the bill of materials on the github site? Since this is open source, I would think building one is feasable or am I off base?

HELLO! Im Berry, in Hawaii. I do computer security as my day job, and love gadgets. I dont think there is a single thing in my house I have not hacked/tweaked/or at least taken apart.

I settled on the handibot beacuse of flexibility, and because i wasnt going to pay $10K for a PRS alpha. Where would I put a machine that big? I also didnt want to build one myself.

I ordered the handibot about 6 months ago, and have used it for really random things. I made a keg tap holder that zip ties onto a pony keg. I cut a hub out of carbon fiber for my hexcopter. Ive cut a few signs and nameplates as well. I really like the machine, and now im trying to build a full size workbench with indexing so i can get really serious.

I'm primarily going to be doing art, PCB boards and control panels with it at first. I build a lot of control systems for flame effects and such and do a lot of leather work. I'm really looking forward to doing some custom leather stamps and tooling leather directly with CNC techniques.

I've had a homebuilt CNC for the last 10 years or so and have a couple of 3D printers. I'm an OpenSCAD evangelist, I contribute to the project and have written for Make:Magazine about it.

Hi, I'm Robin. I have ordered my handibot and am trying to learn about it before it gets here. I'm way out of my league and am new to cnc, 3d etc but I'm very tenacious and determined to learn. I do a lot of photography and that's how I happened on to the handibot. In my day job I see patients everyday so I always love something entirely different. I would like to learn how to design in 3d but for now are there any great sites where I can just purchase project files to use until I get accustomed? Plan to make things for my grandkids, gifts, etc. Thanks!